History

  The original Atomic Skull was Dr. Albert Michaels, a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who suffered from a rare nervous order. Using cybernetic implants to re-enable the electrical pulses in his brain, he later found that they gave him the ability to convert his brainwaves into powerful bolts of energy. As the criminal Atomic Skull, Michaels has battled the Flash (II), Firestorm (I), and Thunder and Lightning. For a while, he seemed to have been cured from his criminal persona, but was then psychologically manipulated (along with Magenta) to become one of the sleeper agents of rogue scientist Alysia Damalis.

  There is no known connection between Michaels and the second Atomic Skull, Joe Martin.

  [Note: Pre-Crisis, Atomic Skull I was primarily a Superman villain. That is no longer canonical. Post-Crisis, he has only appeared once fighting Thunder and Lightning, but it seemed like much of his pre-Crisis history had been kept intact.]